A return from Spencer Dinwiddie (although unlikely) would give the Brooklyn Nets a much-needed bench spark.
The Brooklyn Nets will enter the playoffs, healthy or not, as the overwhelming favorites to win the Eastern Conference and make the NBA Finals. With their big three of James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving only playing in seven games together this season, the Nets have still managed to race to the 1-seed in the conference.
The expectation is that the Nets will be healthy once the playoffs begin (and they’ll need to be) but even if they aren’t this team has proven they can be successful and will still be considered a championship contender. And should Spencer Dinwiddie make a return in the playoffs, well this team will only emerge as that much more of a threat.
While a return of Dinwiddie may be considered unlikely, he actually gave voice to that idea and added that it’s “realistic.”
Spencer Dinwiddie was asked about status for the playoffs at Collision: "Ohh, that's a tough one. Recovery's going great...The ramp-up to be able to play in a playoff atmosphere is realistic." Adds conditioning is main hurdle and he's returned to the court in past couple weeks.
— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) April 22, 2021
Dinwiddie suffered a partially torn ACL at the beginning of the season. Perhaps this is nothing more than just hope and looking at his injury in a positive light, but this is certainly an interesting development on part of the Nets.
And something that I don’t think many even thought was a possibility. But if Dinwiddie could actually pull this off, there’s no question that he’d give the Nets a defined boost.
Spencer Dinwiddie would help the Brooklyn Nets’ inconsistent bench unit
If there’s one weakness on this Nets roster, it’s their depth. The only non-starter that is averaging double-figures for the team is Jeff Green. And even though Green has been good for the Nets this season, I’m not sure that’s generally a good thing for a team’s depth in 2021.
Dinwiddie’s return would give this team a bench boost that it needs.
Brooklyn has the 19th ranked scoring bench this season and has struggled on that from all season long. In the three games this season, Dinwiddie wasn’t lighting the box score on fire but has the potential to step up on any given night.
Let’s not forget that last season Dinwiddie had a breakout season in Brooklyn in which he averaged 21 points and seven assists per game. This season, in the three games he played in, Dinwiddie was averaging seven points and four rebounds per game.
I’d have to imagine that most of Dinwiddie’s lack of production likely had to do with the fact that he was acclimating to essentially a new team, with the return of Irving and Durant.
Even though a return should still be considered unlikely by Dinwiddie, it would only help sharpen one of the weakest tools in the Nets’ bag.